The Goblin Mirror

8

GRACJA HAD TO REST AND NIKOLAI STAYED ON HER BACK, sleeping, Yuri hoped, but Nikolai had been very quiet, scarily quiet, this last while, and he hesitated between touching him to be sure he was all right or letting him sleep if it meant he was out of pain.

He decided the latter, weary as he was himself—his feet ached, his legs ached ... he stopped counting there, except the stinging scratches he had gotten from brush. He was not cold. His rests were too short and the going too hard to let him chill, and he had given Nikolai his cloak, because Nikolai's wounded hand was growing colder and colder, even while Nikolai's face was warm to the touch.

"I'm fevered," was the last thing Nikolai had said, the last thing that made sense, at least. Something about goblins and trolls, and the folly of trusting one.

There had not been another sign of Krukczy, but thank the god and the lady, Yuri thought, there had been none of goblins so far, either; and the sun was coming up now, as he tugged at Gracja's reins and coaxed her to move. Zadny was already off down the trail, too fast, always too fast—he had given up worrying that he would lose the dog, Zadny came back when he had gone too far, and he just slogged along at the best pace he could until Gracja had to rest again.

His side hurt. He tugged Gracja up one hill and down the other, with never a sound out of Nikolai.

But Zadny had been out of sight a very long time now, and he was beginning to wonder and to fret, and finally, though he hated to make a sound in the woods, he called out, "Zadny!"

Echoes came back. "Zadny—Zadny—Zadny . . ." And Nikolai moaned and lifted his head.

"He's just been gone a long while," Yuri said, and went back to Nikolai's side and touched his face. Nikolai was burning hot. "Do you want a drink, sir?"

"Find the damn dog," Nikolai said fuzzily. "Something's the matter."

He did not know whether that advice was fever-inspired or not, but it was his own sense of priorities. He got back to the fore and led Gracja along the base of a wooded hill, along a leafy track, and a muddy spot.

A horse had trod there. So they were still on the right track. He pulled at Gracja, wanting her to hurry, thinking— if only they had made enough time during the night, if the ones they were following had made camp and slept, then they might overtake them, and they might find help in time for Nikolai—

Zadny came panting back, just close enough to catch sight of a shaggy flash of his tail through the brush. Then he yipped and was off again. Maybe, Yuri told himself, struggling to pull Gracja along faster, faster. Zadny was excited, Zadny might have found something—please me god it was not just a rabbit hole.

He was watching his feet, trying not to trip, his arm feeling near pulled out of its socket by Gracja's resistance, but he glanced up to see where the slope upward was leading, saw stones and vines through the trees, saw ...

"We've found somewhere," he breathed, holding the ache in his side. "Master Nikolai, there's a gate—"

He could see it clearly in the dawn. He saw Zadny dart into it and out and back again into some courtyard. It looked dreadfully deserted. If he owned a tower in the middle of a forest full of goblins, he would not leave its gates standing open or let its walls grow over with climbable vines like that.

"Master Nikolai," he said quietly. "I think you'd better stay here and let me see what's inside."

"Doesn't look too good," Nikolai murmured. So he was aware of what was going on around him. Yuri patted his shoulder, eased his bow and his arrow case free of Gracja's saddle and said, "I'll be right back."

But he strung the bow and he took out an arrow before he slipped up to the gateway and had a look.

God.

He shut his eyes and looked away, and had to look back, at the poles, and the dreadful skulls. He felt cold all over, and his heart was thumping from the shock.

Goblins, he thought.

And then he realized there were two skulls, besides the animals, and he remembered they were following two people, and his knees began to shiver under him, and his heart to thump harder. He did not want to worry Nikolai until he knew something—he could not think that those grisly bones were his brothers, he refused to believe that could be them. His teeth chattered, he was so scared, so he clenched his jaw, and, shoulders to the wall, eased inside, behind the cover of a bush that should never have been allowed to grow right next to the gate. His father would have such a sorry castelan horsewhipped, his father would say, his father would never let a place get into this condition . . .

Nothing stirred. Zadny was gone, somewhere, and nothing had eaten him, yet, or if it had, it had been quiet about it. He spotted another place to hide and slipped toward it, did not feel comfortable in that one, and went for a second nook, closer still. There he waited for Zadny to come back, waited what felt like a very long time, long enough almost to start thinking again about those awful bones and wanting and not wanting to look at them to see if there was anything familiar in them.

So he moved again, because if Zadny would only come back, so that he could get his hands on him and be sure Zadny was not going to do something stupid, like start barking, he urgently needed to get back to Nikolai, who was waiting alone out there.

More bad yard keeping. Maybe goblins had raided the place, but if they had not broken the house door down, they had probably climbed right up the huge vines that led to that open window . . .

He had a sudden spooky feeling that something might be watching him. He held his breath and wanted out of sight of that window, looked for a place to go, and ran for the side of the tower itself.

Then he heard something like claws on stone, that might be Zadny or might not be. He was furious at the dog. Come out here, he wished Zadny; the faintest whistle might bring him, if he was in the hall—or it might bring something else.

If the place was deserted, he thought, and the goblins were gone, the same as they had left the other tower, then he and Nikolai might be safe here tonight. They might find a bed for Nikolai and doors to shut, maybe not the outer one, that would betray their presence here; but some inner one, maybe the lowest rooms where they would never think to search, and Nikolai could rest—

His brothers might nave thought that. He had followed two horses this far, and if they had seen the same thing in the courtyard that he had seen, they might have ridden out of here on the instant, the way they would if they could—or they could even have done what he proposed to do, and bolted themselves inside.

A dog yipped, and yelped into silence. His heart bounced into his throat and sank again. He thought, I should get out of here. Now.

But if it were not his brothers—if it were not his brothers-why had Zadny led them in here, what would keep Zadny occupied here, when Zadny would hardly quit the trail to eat or sleep?

The goblins were surely gone. The goblins in the tower in the mountains had made no secret of their being there.

He eased forward, then stopped, at the clatter of a horse in the courtyard behind him, saw Gracja, with Nikolai upright in the saddle and holding his sword in his left hand, the god only knew how he had drawn it. Gracja woke echoes in the place, a slow clatter of hooves as he rode in, and Yuri held his place, shivering, thinking, If there's anything here, they'll see him and he can't see me. Father Sun, what's he doing? Is he thinking about that? Nikolai's too clever to ride in here making all that noise . . .

Then he understood what Nikolai was doing. Nikolai had a fool boy overlong inside this place, and Nikolai was making a racket and putting himself right in the middle of the courtyard, to turn up whatever was hiding here, maybe to create havoc enough to let a stupid boy get out of here if he had run into trouble.

There was the scuff of a footstep, inside. Yuri glanced at the door, looked frantically back at Nikolai, stepped out as far as he dared, trying to signal him—but there was a bend of the wall in the way—and whoever was inside was coming out.

Someone was going to get an arrow in his back the moment he went for Nikolai. Yuri lifted the bow and drew in the same motion, taking calm breaths, the way one had to, who expected his hand and eye to be steady, and he did not think about killing—never think about that, Nikolai had said, just aim.

He drew his arm back, full, as a gray-cloaked figure came out the door, only at the last moment remembering goblins were not deer, goblins might wear armor and the back was a hard place to find a target. . .

But Nikolai was looking at the creature, and Nikolai was not even lifting the sword—Nikolai said, "You bastard," and slid down off Gracja's back.

Then the creature said, "Where are the boys?" in master Karoly's voice. . . .

Yuri held the arrow steady. Magical creatures were full of tricks, and they might look like what they were not, so he had heard. But he did not fire, even when master Nikolai fell, the sword clanging to the dirt-covered cobbles.

The might-be master Karoly hurried to him. Yuri saw white hair beneath the hood, and master Karoly's aged hands, even Karoly's frowning face. But he did not believe it until he saw the old man trying to help Nikolai, and then he knew it was Karoly. Then he let the bow down and came to help.

Master Karoly looked around, startled." Damn you! What in he!l are you doing here?"

"A goblin shot him. I think it could have been poisoned."

"It didn't need to be," master Karoly said, and turned his attention back to Nikolai, swearing as he felt over Nikolai's neck and shoulder. Yuri kept quiet, standing there with his bow in his hands while master Karoly unfastened Nikolai's collar and felt of his heart and his head. "The goblins left us damned well nothing," master Karoly said, to him, Yuri supposed, and he waited anxiously for orders. "I don't suppose you've got blankets. Or a pot."

"Yes, sir." He went and got them from Gracja. And the rest of the herbs Krukczy had found. "The troll gave us these. He made tea with them."

"Troll, is it?" Master Karoly's face was drawn and strange as he snatched the things he had brought. "Troll be damned. Lucky if he lives the day."

"Don't say that!"

"Lucky he's alive this long." Master Karoly started pulling at Nikolai's buckles, trying to get the armor off, and he was being too rough about it.

"Let me," Yuri said, and got the ties that held the sleeve on, while Karoly took his knife and cut off the bandage Nikolai had tied around the outside.

"Damn, it's stuck to it. Get that pot, get some water."

"I've salve—"

"Not for this you don't," Karoly said. "Move, young fool! We need a fire, and the god knows what it'll bring, but there's no damned choice—don't stand there with your mouth open waiting for flies! Move!"

"Yes, sir," he breathed, and grabbed the pot. Zadny was barking again, waking echoes inside. "Where's the water, sir?"

"In the back of the yard!" Karoly snapped at him. "Where would you expect a well? —And, boy ..."

He stopped and turned on one foot. "Sir?" "—Shut that damned dog up, will you?"

The goblin watched them make a fire, the goblin watched them make breakfast, the goblin watched them eat it, and Tamas glowered at it. His head was throbbing, his eyes felt full of sand, and only motion kept his mind from straying down the same unpleasant and useless paths it had followed all night.

"What do we do about it?" he asked.

Ela merely shrugged, "Let be."

"Are we staying here?"

Ela shook her head.

He kept his temper and asked the next question. "Are we leaving now?"

Well, then, Ela would not talk. He would not talk. He got up on legs that felt wooden, limped over to the horses in a temper and began to saddle them to leave this place, Ela nothing gainsaying.

The goblin turned up next to him, at the edge of the woods, making the horses nervous, watching him as if he were the object of its intention.

"You wanted to see her," he said to it, hauling on Lwi's girth. "All right, you've seen her. She doesn't want to talk to you. Why don't you leave?"

"She's not reasonable," it said. "Or wise."

He leaned on the saddle, looking across it as the goblin stood, arms folded, foot tucked, leaning against a tree. "Not wise—because she won't listen to you?" Humor failed him. "What do you want? Why do you destroy things? Is it just your nature?"

"You mistake us."

"Mistake you! Did I mistake what I saw in the courtyard? Or on the roof of Krukczy Straz?"

"I'm i'bu okhthi. That's itra'hi work."

Goblin babble, to his ears. He glared across Lwi's rump and rested his arm on it. But only a fool turned down knowledge. Master Karoly used to say so. So he overcame bis headache and his temper and advanced a surly, "So?"

"Itra'hi aren't my kind, man."

"Ita sure it made a difference to my brother. I'm sure it made a difference to her mistress. They didn't introduce themselves. They didn't exchange formalities."

"They're not the brightest."

"And you are."

"Are you a horse? I think not. One has four feet. It's easy to tell the difference in your kindreds. Easy in ours, if you have half a wit."

"Are you saying you're something different than these— whatever you call them?"

"Flat-tongued human. Indeed, different as you from your beasts. One sends and they do. One doesn't talk to them. One doesn't deal with them. They're dogs. The i'bu okhthi are clearly civilized."

"God." He turned his back on the creature, turned to Ela, sitting on the margin of the stream, and said, "We're ready."

But when he looked back to the goblin—only trees were there, and not a leaf stirring to mark where it had been.

"Butchers," he said after it, hoping it did hear. "Murderers. You loose your hounds to do your work, what's the difference? What's the damned difference, tell me that!"

"Don't," Ela said, behind him when he had not heard her move. His heart jumped.

"Don't what?" He was still angry—with her, now that Azdra'ik was out of sight. "Don't ask what happened to my brother? Don't ask where we're going?"

"There." She nodded at the gateway she had not been willing to pass a second time last night. She was bringing the packs. Ela—was bringing the packs they had been using, practical girl: he was astounded.

"Thank you," he said, not with his best grace, and tried it again, with a sketch of a bow, after he had taken them: "Thank you."

"It's not a safe place," she said. "There's a woods past the second gateway. People go in and don't come back. My mistress said she wasn't sure it has another side, or not always the same side, if you can't see the path."

Three thoughts in a row. Twice amazing.

"Can you?"

She lifted her chin slightly, frowning, and said, "Of course. Can't you?"

He did not understand for a moment, or care to: he was exceedingly weary of her moods and her offenses. Then he realized it was the wizard business again, and an accusation of lying.

"No," he said, and then (he could not help it) had a look toward that gateway to see if he could see anything. "There's nothing."

She went on frowning, while he tied the packs to Skory's saddle and gave her a hand up.

He cast a second glance toward the woods as he rose into Lwi's saddle. And there was still nothing that he could see from that vantage.

She started Skory off, and he followed her, thinking that here was one more choice made, that, dangerous as it might be to try to go back from here, it was going to be worse hereafter.

"Where are we going?" he asked. "Are just the two of us going to go up and knock on the queen's gate and say Shame on you, or what are we going to do, for the god's sake?"

"Banish her," Ela said. "Unweave her spells."

We're both mad, he thought. He thought: What if I were Karoly's grandson, and not Ladislaw's? What if, after all, Karoly's gone and her mistress is and we're all that's left for everyone else to rely on?

What if we were? We wouldn't know. We wouldn't know unless we turned around and came back, and then it would be too late, wouldn't it?

They passed beneath the arch. They rode a weaving course through brush, around piles of rubble, past the walls that had been rooms and vaults and hallways. There was still no path, only half-buried paving-stones, through which weeds and brush grew up. There was no magic. He waited to see something happen.

"My mistress' grandmother lived here once," she said, in answer to nothing. Or maybe it was part of her last answer. "She was born here."

"What was this place?"

"Hasel."

"Hasel!" But it was a strong place, a place full of people. His dream of last night came back, when he was wide awake, people and disaster, and stones riven with light.

"Do they know about Hasel, over the mountains?"

"My—" —My grandmother told me about it, he had begun to say. Gran had relatives here. God. What if it were true? And all those people last night. . . they're dead, dead as gran. The stories were yesterday in his mind, forests and fields and villages where people lived and went about their lives.

"Your—?" she prompted him, but he was not ready to talk to her about gran, or to trust her that much.

"What happened to it?" he asked.

"What happened to it? The mistress here died. The people here died. Ages ago. Hundreds of years ago. If they know about Hasel, don't they know that?"

He heard her, and it sank right to the pit of his stomach, refusing reason. Nothing gran knew could be that long ago. It was some other Hasel. Or the things gran had said she had seen were only stories gran told—only lies.

He might be Karoly's grandson. And now for all he knew gran had lied to him about this place. Too many things were shifting, that he had never doubted in his life—while beyond the farther arch he saw a forest that the witchling called dangerous, a gateway that showed only green shadow and the trunks of aged trees.

"What happened here? Was it a war?"

"With the goblins. When the mirror broke."

"That mirror."

"This mirror. Mistress had it in Tajny Tower; and the goblins killed her and killed Pavel but they couldn't find it and they couldn't find me."

"Who was Pavel?"

"Just Pavel. He came from Hasel when it fell. And he was never right after, mistress said. But he would have fought them when they came. He would have." There came just the least wobble to Ela's voice, true distress. But he was thinking more about what she had said, and about finding her in a lie, as they rode through the archway, as the horses' hooves rang on the threshold of the forest, and went thereafter with the soft scuff of fallen leaves. Wind sighed above them, and morning sun dappled the ground. It did not look so terrible a place, not to left nor right nor straight ahead. The horses certainly took no alarm—Skory most irreverently snatched a mouthful from a bush as they passed, and ate as they walked.

He considered whether to challenge Ela. And decided. "You said Hasel fell a hundred years ago."

"Hundreds."

"So how could this servant of your mistress' be from Hasel? That can't be true."

She frowned and seemed to think about that a moment. "I don't know, that's what she said."

"Hundreds of years ago?"

"Witches—can be that old. I think she was."

"How old are you?"

"I'm not sure ... I think, I think maybe fifteen."

God, she was hardly older than Yuri. Than Yuri, for the god's sake. And had this laid on her?

"Where did you come from?"

"From Albaz. I think from Albaz. Mistress got me when I was very small. I thought she was my mother when I was a baby. But she wasn't."

After silence it was a torrent, in a silence so profound the whispering of the leaves and the horses' movements were the only sound. He thought it sad she had mistaken something as vital as that, and not been sure even where she had been born. At least, with all the confusion she had set in him . . . he knew who his parents were, and what his home was.

"Or maybe I was hers," Ela said, after a moment more of riding, in the whisper of leaves under the horses' feet. "It wouldn't matter. — Who was your mother, if she wasn't a witch? —And how old are you?"

"Seventeen. And my mother isn't a witch. She wouldn't approve of witches."

"Why?"

"She just wouldn't. She's very much on things being-solid. She wouldn't want to think about goblins. She—" —never liked gran's stories, he thought to himself. She was afraid of gran.

Gran wasn't like everybody else, was she? Nobody did say no to her.

God, maybe nobody could.

Maybe, he thought, maybe I could have learned magic from master Karoly, if he had wanted to teach me— but if he could have taught me ... why didn't he?

"Ela. Why didn't Karoly stop the goblins from attacking us?"

She looked at him, across the distance between their horses. "What?"

"The goblins that attacked us. Why didn't master Karoly stop them? He was with us, he saw the warnings. Why didn't he stop us? "

Ela cast a look ahead, as if she were looking at something a thousand miles away.

"Ela. Why. Didn't. He?"

"Pardon?"

"Why didn't master Karoly stop us from that road? Why didn't he work magic and protect us?"

"Because I'm not— because I couldn't. Whatever I am, I never learned, because he never taught me. Why can't you answer a plain question? You were there, weren't you? Why didn't you warn us?"

She shook her head. The air around them seemed unnaturally still and heavy. He had thought the frowns were arrogance. Or anger. But he felt uneasy now. It seemed the sunlight was less ahead. And if there was a path here he could not discern it.

"Ela?" he asked, because the spookiness of the place made him think about that road. Or maybe thinking about the road made him remember ambush too vividly. "How did Karoly do nothing to warn us?"

"Because—because the magic wanted it."

"Whose magic? Goblin magic?"

A shake of her head. "No one can know. No one can know, when magic fights magic. It could have been anyone, it could have been my mistress. It always could be anyone. Contrary magic can go anywhere. You can't tell what will happen."

'It always could be anyone.' It sounded like Karoly.

"Sometimes," Ela said, "sometimes you can't avoid things because you don't even know if you did them. Sometimes you're afraid not to do something. My mistress said-said Karoly might make things worse, she wasn't sure he should come at all, but she couldn't wait any longer. You don't know whose idea it was—her magic or the queen's. She called him, all the same. And it turned out—it turned out the way it did."

"And our going now? We don't know where, or why, but we're just going?"

"To find the center of the woods," she said, "but I don't know whose magic is leading us. I don't know who's stronger."

That was not at all a comforting thing to hear. "We're going against the queen of all the goblins and you wonder whose magic is stronger? Ela, you're not—" —Not as damned good as you think, he thought, in Nikolai's way of saying.

But was not he going where she led? And had he not reasoned half a score of times that if he had any good sense he would have gone home? And where was he now?

Looking about him at the trees, at a woods pathless to his eyes—where, indeed, was he?

"Not just me," she said faintly, "it's all the witches of the Wood. I may be the only chance they have. And I think we should go and try—because I think that, that's all. Everything they've done and everything she's done, I'm what it comes down to—so I am the greatest witch in Tajny Wood, do you understand? And I don't know whose magic brought you, but neither can the queen. Neither of us can know whose magic is working."

"Then what good is it, if no one can tell what will happen?"

"But things change. And if you do something small, it could be because of something large—and if you do something very large, you'd better know what you're doing, that's what my mistress said."

How do you do something very large? was the question that leapt to mind. If he were Karoly's working, if what she said was at all true or sane, then he wanted to challenge the situation and do something magical—please the god, that could fail outright; or prove whether he had any magic at all in him. If he was at all a wizard he could magic up an incontrovertible proof, could he not?

But then—if magic worked the way she said—one could never know. Was that not what she had just said—in all her reasoning: there's never a way to know?

Where had the damned goblin gone, and what was it up to? Bearing messages to its queen?

And why had Karoly never told him, if he was a wizard? And why had Ela said what she had said, when all this time . . . she would or could say nothing?

Has something happened? he wondered. Has something somewhere changed? And is it our magic or theirs that's brought us into this place?

Hell of a wakening. Dark and fire and something clanking in his ear. Shadows on stone ceiling. Dull pain. And that damned dog. Nikolai put up the hand that worked and shoved it away. Karoly leaned over him. For a moment he had trouble sorting it out. But the images lingered in his vision.

"Well, well," Karoly said. "Good afternoon, master huntsman."

"Damn you," he murmured. "Where were you? "

"Afoot, as happens. While you had a horse to ride on. At least a pony. Followed the dog, young Yuri says. And doesn't know where his brothers are, except he hopes they got away, he was following them in company with a troll, and he hopes they aren't the skulls in the courtyard." Karoly slipped a hand under his head and stuffed a wad of blanket behind him, then went to the fireside and poured something, which he brought back. "Drink this."

"It smells like stable sweepings."

"It's been a little through the damp, just drink it and stop complaining. You're alive. That's more than some of us can say, isn't it?"

He drank it, sip by nauseating sip. The dog had gone somewhere—where the boy was, he hoped. "Where's Yuri?"

"Asleep," Karoly was putting jars in a sack, scores of little jars, all over the table. And scattered powders and leaves and herbs. Nikolai finished the cup and set it on his chest, looking at the ceiling of what he supposed was the hall in the tower he had fainted in front of, and a fire that was not a good idea, if there were goblins about.

"Is this your sister's place?" he asked when Karoly took the cup.

"It was."

He recalled the skulls in the courtyard, and gave the old man latitude for rudeness. He tried to think ahead of things, tried the fingers of his wounded arm to see if they worked, and they did, enough to serve. But whatever tea Karoly had just served up was the same sort as the troll's, so far as his head could witness: he could count the beats of his heart, thump, thump, thump, louder than the crackling of the fire, louder than the old man sitting with his hands between his knees and his fingers weaving cat's-cradles with a bit of yam.

He thought of slender fingers, the same game, the same tuneless humming . . . thought of the lady gran, by the fireside, the lady gran looking up at him with dark, dark eyes, and saying, "Aren't we the curious one? Spying, are we? Do you know what happens to boys who spy?"

"I was looking for Stani," he had said—to go hunting, as he recalled. Stani and he had used to do that in those days, when Stani was a gawky young man and he had been—

He had been—

"You're often about with my son," the lady gran had said. "What do you do in the woods, you? Watch the birds?"

"Yes," he had said. And:

"Look at me." The lady caught his eyes and he could not look away. A long while later she ceased to frown, and he could breathe again. "You have no lies. That's remarkable. I don't think I've ever met a boy who wouldn't lie. Are you loyal to Stani?"

"Yes, lady," he said.

She said, "You're a clever boy. Too clever to catch at lies. Don't spy on me again. Do you hear?"

"Yes, lady," he had said. And all the while watched the patterns that she wove. . . .

Karoly had said, "Let the boy go, Urzula." Urzula had been her name. But no one ever called her that. She was the Lady from the day the Old Lord had his fell until the day she died: only then had Stani become the lord and his wife Agnieszka became lady over Maggiar. and Stani had been a man with three sons by then.

The same weaving as the lady gran. He had not seen Karoly do that in years.

"What is that?" he asked muzzily, the question he ached to ask the lady—but she was dead. She had died in the storm, and it had rained continually until she was in her grave—a cold and comfortless rain, with lightnings and thunder . . .

"What do you imagine it is?" Karoly asked. The firelight caught Karoly at disadvantage, cast his face grim and his hair fire-colored. The fingers caught another loop. A cage, Nikolai thought, for no reason. A trap.

"I don't know." The years had taught him to lie, at need. "Where's the boy?"

"Asleep. He's exhausted."

"What about Bogdan and Tamas?"

"I don't know."

"Well, where were you? Where have you been the last two days?"

"Three. It's afternoon of the third."

"Where the hell were you?"

"My horse bolted," Karoly snapped. "I fell off. I went for help. As of yesterday—there wasn't any here. Is that enough?—" Zadny broke out barking again, and barrelled through the room, oversetting a bottle from the table. "Dammit!"

Zadny was scratching at the door, furiously. Nikolai bethought him of his sword, and felt for it, as Karoly abandoned his cat's-cradle and stood up.

Nikolai asked: "Where does that lead?"

"The cellars."

"Master Karoly?" Yuri stumbled from around the corner, wiping his eyes, his hair tousled. "Master Nikolai?"

"Hush," Karoly said, went and gathered up a staff standing against the door. Nikolai tried to get up, feeling around him for his sword. Yuri had his bow in hand, and strung it.

"Hush!" Karoly said again, and Zadny whimpered into silence. One could hear something being dragged, slowly, slowly, step at a time.

"It's the troll," Yuri whispered. "It's Krukczy!"

"Krukczy, is it?"

"Where's my sword?" Nikolai hissed, but Karoly shot the bolt back and shoved the door open.

It was a troll, that was sure. It looked as if someone had deposited a brash heap on the steps: it stood there covered with twigs, with two great eyes in the shag of its mane. And Zadny, loyal hound that he was, leapt into its arms, licking it and wagging his tail.

"That's Krukczy, for sure," Yuri said.

"Oh, hell,'" Nikolai breathed, sank back against the support of the corner and watched the troll and the hound come inside.

The sun was a green brightness in the canopy. "I never saw trees so tall," Tamas said, and added, "I never heard a forest so quiet," because there was not the least sound now but their movement, not the sound of birds or insects, not the scamper of a rabbit across the leaves. "Do you still see a path? I don't."

"I can see it," Ela said, following whatever she had been following, and for all her claims that he had wizardry of his own it only seemed to him a spookier and spookier place, a place that gave him a feeling—he could not quite surround the idea with a thought—that the woods had no definite edges from here. That was a peculiar kind of impression to have, as if it could be different from inside than out. But that was the way he saw it. And it looked darker ahead than anywhere left or right, while Ela steadfastly maintained she knew her way, and that when they got to the right place, she would know it, and use the mirror, and have all the magic of the woods at her command. The horses trod a brown mottled carpet, the leaves of many summers, and the trunks of the trees were huge beyond anything he had ever seen—as if they and the horses had shrunk or the scale of the world had changed. Only the dead leaves were of ordinary size, and very thick, as if winds seldom reached here. The horses trod carefully in places where the packed leaves concealed uneven slopes or hid the roots of trees—the ground was full of deceptions and traps. And from green above them, there gradually seemed more brush and tangles, in a premature twilight that persuaded the eye that the sun was setting.

But it could not be. It had only just been noon, and they rode now in such shadow that it seemed the sun itself had failed, or the hours had slipped away toward dark and night in furtive haste. The eye believed it. The body did. Tamas found himself fighting a yawn, and arguing that it was not that late, that he was sleepy from too long last night goblin-watching. With Lwi walking sedately at Skory's tail in this tangled undergrowth, with Ela sunk in thought or magic the while, he found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

His body swayed to Lwi's gentle motion. Why resist? the leaves seemed to whisper.

"How long do you suppose to sundown?" he asked, if only for the sound of his own voice above the sleepy sigh of leaves. "I can't think it's that late."

"I don't know," Ela murmured. He had only her back for a view, but a downhill slope encouraged Lwi to overtake Skory, step by slow step, so that for a while they rode side by side. Ela herself repressed a yawn, the back of her hand to her mouth, and he shook his head, because it made him have to.

"I can't keep awake," he said. "It's this place. It's this woods. Damn!" A third yawn. It was beyond foolish. He shook his head.

"It's very old," Ela said. "That's all. It's an old place. Mistress said—"

She stifled a yawn of her own and he could not resist. It was ridiculous and frightening at once. The shadow was luce a blanket coming down on them, and the air beneath the aged trees should have been cold with that shadow, but it had no feeling at all. He could not remember now what their immediate aim was, but he recalled it was important and they dared not stop—there had been too many deer and too many wolves, and he had given his bow to his brother, back in the yard. A girl had given him a cake and they had had it that night at the fire—Lwi caught-step of a sudden, over a fallen branch or his own feet, and shook him off his balance.

"Damn!" His wits were wandering. The horses' steps were heavy and slower and slower, and that was not right. He leaned over and hit Skory. Skory jumped and Lwi did, startled awake. But by the time they had come to the bottom of the hill, the horses were only ambling again, and resisted a second such trick, only did a faster step for a moment, and slacked off again,

"This isn't right," he said, "this isn't right at all. . ."

Ela lifted the amulet to her lips and held it aloft, her eyes shut and a dreadful concentration on her brow.

"What are you doing?" he began to ask, but just then came a spark of light, as if the mirror had caught the sun, then another, and another, and another. Her eyes opened and she let slip the mirror to dangle from its chain, as sparkles of light began to dance about them, on the ground, on themselves.

"Keep on!" he said, and in a numb, distant daze saw sunlight from the mirror glitter on the trees and sweep the ground. He had no idea now whether it was the right way they were going. He could only ride with the sparkles of light, that seemed to dance and beckon further and further amid the gloom.

A long time it seemed they went that way, the horses walking more alertly, their way lit with dazzle from an absent sun, a giddy, spinning dance of light in which Tamas began to hope there was safety . . .

Until they came to a steep descent, and that light glanced off metal.

"Ela!" he whispered, reining back. He saw goblins, hundreds and hundreds of them, arrayed in ambush among the leaves.

But his own voice seemed to come from far away, and Lwi stumbled when he began to turn on the slope. He saw Ela riding on, and he tried to bring Lwi about again on the leaf-buried slope, to reach her and turn her aside—but before he could persuade Lwi to overtake her it was too late: she rode within the goblin ranks, and those ranks tumbled, one and the next and the next, into piles of metal, moldered leather, and bleached bone.

He stared, overwhelmed by the strangeness of the sight, so that he questioned whether he was awake or seeing what he thought he was seeing. Lwi had stopped with him, and he tried to urge him to overtake the witchling, but Ela was further and further away, from the moment he had reined back. Now the sparkle of the mirror swept the ground ahead and danced among the trees, but not where he was. The whole woods seemed darkened, and Ela and the light seemed far, far away.

"Ela," he called after her. "Ela!" The woods seemed to swallow up the sound. He struck Lwi hard, for both their sakes, but Lwi would not go faster, not even take alarm at the heaps of bone that tumbled and rattled where they rode. He saw Ela look back as if at great distance. She was almost to the top of the next hill, and then at the crest of it.

"Tamas?" he thought he heard her answer him. But the sparkle went out then, and left no traces in the woods where he was. Lwi stopped listlessly, and he slid down in desperation and took the reins and began to lead him, insisting he keep moving, up and up the hill.

But perhaps he had turned aside on the hill and mistaken his direction—hills had so many faces, and deceived the senses so easily. He trudged the whole wide hillside, and found, everywhere, the ghastly dead, as if he had wandered onto some forgotten battleground, of some unchronicled war. There was no sign of Ela, not the least glimmering of the light he sought, only the rattle of bones falling, of armor clattering, and the sight of unhuman skulls—Azdra'ik's kind, and in like armor. He gathered up a sword from one of the dead, a frightening thing with backward spines for one of its quillons, the use of which might be to disarm ... the god knew, else.

With that, he kept going about the crown of the hill. Ela could not have had that much time to disappear. Skory might have had her way and gone off without direction, or even, the god forbid, thrown her and left her hidden in the brush. If that were the case, he might see her from the height.

But when he had trekked all about the hill, he found only more white and eyeless dead, and endless tracts of forest. He set out in the direction he thought they had been going, the sword thrust through his belt and Lwi's reins in hand, dragging at him so his arm ached. He called Ela's name from time to time, but, dreamlike, the forest smothered his voice. He said to Lwi, in the numbing whispering of leaves, "We'll find her. We won't lie down here. The silly girl says I can work magic. So let's try, shall we? Let's say we should find her, let's think about that, that's a good horse ..."

Easy to sleep. Far too easy to shut his eyes, even walking; while he still came on scattered stragglers of that ghastly army—as if some of that number had attempted escape from whatever had left them waiting for all time—only to let their eyes drift shut, losing their war to a gentle enemy. If he had magic, he called on it to save him and Ela from this place. If he had favor with the gods, he pleaded with them, but he was not sure they could reach within this realm, and he was not sure he had been as devout as the priests would wish.

"This way," the leaves seemed to whisper. "This way, Tamas."

Fish roasted on the fire, and there were greens such as Krukczy had found unspoiled in the garden and a few kitchen stores, but goblins had gotten the rest. It was a strange night, with Krukczy's musty fur drying in the heat of a fire, and Zadny with his head on his knee, and the dreadful warning still standing in the yard. Yuri did not like to think about it, and master Nikolai himself had asked if Karoly did not want them to try to bury the remains, such as there were, but Karoly had said no, said it with such harshness as invited no second question on the matter.

So here they sat, roasting fish in a ruined hall, amid the clutter the goblins had left of the place. Nikolai was able to sit up and have his supper, one-handed, and they had found master Karoly, and they had a roof over their heads and a wall around them tonight, but over all, Yuri found no appetite—thinking about Karoly's sister, and the servant, Karoly guessed it was, out there in the yard; and most of all thinking how it must have been Karoly's trail Zadny had followed, not his brothers', after all. This might be the end of it, beyond which—beyond which was nothing but going home, with Nikolai and with Karoly, at least, but—

He felt Zadny's head on his knee, absently scratched the soft, shaggy ears. Zadny had had his fish and probably wanted his, that was growing cold on a broken dish, so he began to break off bits, and pick out the bones, and give it to him.

But he heard master Karoly say something to Nikolai about tomorrow. Then followed an exchange he could not hear, the two of them talking in low voices; so he listened harder, and heard, "—going on from here,"

"Alone?" Nikolai asked, then Karoly said something, but Krukczy switched his tail just then, and a coal snapped in the fireplace, making Zadny jump.

He listened harder. And suddenly saw two grim faces look his way in unison.

He set his jaw and said, "Master Karoly. Are you talking about finding my brothers? Because if you are I'm not going home."

"Damned right you're going home," Nikolai said. "You're going to do as you're told for once, young my lord, and if you've any regard for your brothers' lives you won't take me from Karoly to make sure you get there."

"They're alive."

"I've the notion one is," master Karoly said, at which Yuri's heart beat faster and faster. "I'm fairly certain Tamas was here, and not so long ago."

"Then where is he?" His voice startled Zadny, who jumped up, darting from him to Krukczy, who crouched by the fire, and back, and back again.

"He knows," Krukczy rumbled, and rubbed Zadny's head. "Hound, he knows—brother. Hound, he knows."

"It talks to him?" Nikolai asked, but master Karoly held up his hand and said,

"Say on, master Krukczy. What else do you know?"

The troll's tail spun a nervous, curling trail, and ended in its broad hands, for safekeeping, as seemed. "Witch."

"What about a witch?"

"Young witch. Belongs here."

"Her apprentice," Karoly said, and got up and paced as far as the door to the outside. "Damn! her apprentice ... that's who. That's who! I couldn't see her!"

Who what? Yuri wondered, but it was Nikolai who dared ask it.

"Who are you talking about?"

Master Karoly turned about, and it was a frighteningly different old man, it was not the amiable master Karoly who had shown him the weather-glass, it was an angry man whose sister was dead outside, who had seen friends struck from ambush, and who had walked for days to get here.

"A young and desperate fool," he said, and cast himself down again by the fire. "God, god—she might have taken it. I'd forgotten all about her."

"Taken what?" Nikolai asked.

"What she has no business on earth to have in her hands. But if I weren't here, if she did survive ..."

"What?" Nikolai asked, but Karoly shushed him and stared into the fire and thought and thought.

Yuri ate a cold bit of fish. And another. The troll said that one of his brothers was alive. And the way Zadny was after the trail, it might be Tamas—he hoped it was Tamas. He did not know if that was wicked or not, but he liked Tamas better. »

But if it was Bogdan, he was still not going back without him. He watched Karoly, and waited, and so did Nikolai, uncommonly patient with master Karoly.

Yuri sucked his fingers clean of fish, and held the bones in a napkin on his lap, waiting; but finally he saw master Nikolai lean his back against the wall, seeming in pain; and he said, very so quietly, "You should go to bed, sir, I'll wait up. I need to talk to master Karoly anyway. I'm not going back."

Nikolai frowned darkly at him, cradling his wounded arm.

"It's my brother, sir."

"My god, your father should take a stick to your backside!"

"The boy belongs here," Karoly said.

"What do you mean he belongs here?" Nikolai cried, and winced. "Lord Sun, Karoly, your wits are addled."

"My wits are in excellent form, master huntsman." Master Karoly had pulled a twig from the bit of wood he added to the fire, and he stripped bark from it with his thumbnail. "If the boy went back now, he would be in worse danger. There are things abroad that would smell him out in a moment."

"We're not safe company," Nikolai said.

"No. Nor is he. Nor is my sister's apprentice." Master Karoly's mouth made a tight line as he tied the bit of cedar in a cross, and split it further. It made, Yuri realized of a sudden, the shape of a man.

Karoly cast it into the fire.

"Why did you do that?" Yuri asked.

"One pays," Karoly said. "One at least acknowledges the obligation to pay. Be polite with the gods. These are dangerous places."

"No riddles," Nikolai said. "I'm full to the teeth with riddles, master trickster. No more flummery. Where is Tamas, what did the apprentice take, and where are they going?"

"In over his head, a bit of mirror, and the heart of hell. Now do you know what I'm talking about?"

Two grown men were about to argue and nothing was going to get done. "Please," Yuri said. "What about mirrors, master Karoly?"

Karoly looked him in the eyes so long he felt the silence grow, but Krukczy the troll rumbled,

"Mirror of the goblin queen."

"A fragment of it," Karoly said. He had pulled another twig and peeled it, turning it in his fingers. "A fragment of the goblin queen's mirror. It has the power of delusion, the power of bewitchment. . . the power of misleading and confusion and seeming."

"Where is it?"

"It used to be here. Since it isn't, I can only hope the apprentice has it. I can only hope my sister warned the girl what it is, and most of ail what it isn't."

"For the god's sake," Nikolai said, "in words without their tails in their mouths—what does the thing do? Or what doesn't it?"

"It doesn't make clever out of foolish, it doesn't rescue lambs from the slaughter, and it doesn't help a mouse catch a cat."

"What can it do?"

"Too damned much to have it wandering the countryside. When the mirror cracked, a goblin carried one shard to the upper world, so I had the story. That was a long, long time ago."

"Young mistress got it," Krukczy said.

"Did she, now?" Master Karoly lifted his brows and stared at the troll,

"Young mistress took it from the goblin. A present. A long, long time ago."

"What does he mean?" Nikolai asked.

"It means I know now how it came to my sister. Urzula never said. Damn."

"Urzula never said?" Nikolai asked.

Gran? Yuri wondered. Our gran? Meanwhile Karoly nodded to Nikolai's question and chewed on the twig, staring into the fire. "I wish the girl had waited. I do wish shahad waited."

"Young witch came to my tower," Krukczy said, "to find brothers. One fell to the river, down with rocks. I give him to her."

"ItwTamas," Nikolai said.' (He and his horse went down the slide."

Yuri drew in a breath. He remembered the road and those sharp rocks from the bottom side, as it slanted down and down toward the stream that flowed past Krukczy Straz. But Tamas was alive, even Nikolai believed it, now! He rested his arm on his knee and his fist against his mouth, trying not to ask silly questions while his elders were thinking, which they clearly were,

"I don't like this," Karoly said. "It doesn't have a good feeling at all. That fragment is moving."

"Moving where?" Nikolai asked.

"Toward its owner. It's been in a safe place all these years. The goblins were no present threat. Now the girl's missed me and gotten Tamas, and they've taken the piece and gone east, no question but what it's east ..."

"Goblin follows them," Krukczy said. "I smell him in this room."

"Ng'Saeich," Karoly murmured, or something like that, and Karoly's jaw stayed open, twig and all. "God. That scoundrel! Of course he is!"

"Who?" Yuri asked, he could not help it.

"The thief, of course, the thief, damn him! The fools murdered her and they probably didn't even know who she was. They didn't care. But he knew. He knew, damn him, he felt it the same as I, and he beat me here!"

"I need to speak with you," Nikolai said to Karoly, in that way grown-ups had when they wanted boys out of earshot.

Karoly said, "The boy is going with us. There's no choice now."

"How far is he going to make it? To a den of goblins? To what the rest of us made it to? What they did to your sister and her servant. . . god, they probably ate them, man, this is not an enemy who'll fight fair."

"Neither do I," Karoty said, and spat a bit of the twig, that hissed in the fire. "Neither would my sister. That's why I won't bury her. Go to bed. Both of you. You'll not dream tonight."

"I thought we were going after my brother!" Yuri protested. He did not understand what Nikolai and Karoly were arguing about. He did understand Tamas and a witch's apprentice being somewhere in the forest and someone named ng'Saeich looking for the piece of mirror they were carrying. Most of all he understood what he had seen in the yard, and that goblins had done it. "What about Bogdan? What about Jerzy and Zev and Filip? What about. . . ?"

"In the morning," Karoly said. "In the morning we'll go, and go quickly. Don't wake for any sound you hear. —Master Krukczy. Watch the deep ways. And take the dog. He'd be better with you tonight."

"Master Karoly," Yuri protested, upset and angry. But Karoly got up, making a shadow above him, and caught his face painfully in his hand, after which Yuri found his eyes closing.

"There's too much, too much to explain. Go to bed, boy."

Yuri found himself doing that without knowing why or remembering quite what they had been saying. He only remembered Zadny after he had gotten to the pallet master Karoly had made him in the wreckage of the hall.

And once that night he opened his eyes to think that a stranger stood near him. He thought it was a woman. He could not say why. He only knew whoever it was, was angry, and looking for someone who was not him.

Whoever it was brushed his hair with its hand and went away. He shivered after that. He had no idea why it had scared him, since none of the anger was aimed at him. But he was afraid, all the same.

The boy was quiet—exhausted, Nikolai could think, except he had the evidence of magic in himself with every breath he took. He kept expecting the pain to come back. The memory of it was so vivid he expected it to return if he so much as shifted his back against the wedge of blankets between him and the corner. And he had never given that much credence to the old man's abilities, true, but he had never forgotten the lady. He had tried to tell himself all his life it had only been a boy's imagination that had tingled through his bones that night and spooked him down the stairs—and that the pain in his arm was fading steadily was all very fine, he supposed, but no one had consulted him in it. It had been his pain and it was still his arm, and he sat there in a witch's ruined hall with the acute feeling he had had something thoroughly unpleasant done to him, but he could not swear to what; and the equally acute feeling that he both knew and had never known the old man across the room.

He watched Karoly throw a log on the fire, watched Karoly press his ear to the stone of the fireplace and shake his head as if he did not like what he had heard. Karoly patted the stone as if it were alive, then pottered about some more, putting their pans away into the packs. Finally he came and sat down on the bench next to the bed. The fire cast a halo around the old man and the shadow fell on Nikolai's face, making him feel, for some reason, cornered.

"How's the arm?" Karoly asked.

"All right," he said. "Twinges." Which was the truth. The old man's magic was not perfect. "—So what do we do about the boy?"

"Nothing we can do." Karoly was still chewing that bit of twig, and made it turn in his mouth. "When magic works it pulls things. If something's going the way its various parts are, it's safer for that particular something, you understand?"

"You mean the boy going with us."

"I mean you going with us. Leave us and you'll be goblin bait by morning. The boy has to go where everything else goes—getting him away from the magic at work in this land would be impossible."

"Impossible! Tell me 'impossible!' " He remembered the boy asleep and dropped his voice. "I can get him home. Trust me!"

"Not a chance. He'd come back, probably because you were dead. You're alive now because of him, and don't ask me why. I don't know everything."

"But you know that, do you? You're so damned sure of that? One of Stani's boys is wandering around the woods—"

"One of Stani's boys is in serious trouble. Shut up and listen, master huntsman. Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn or just before, I want you to take the boy and the horse and the dog and get outside the gates. I may join you. If I don't, and you don't like the look of things, head east, bearing along the wall. Krukczy will go with you."

Something about not fighting fair. The skulls in the yard. And not burying his sister.

"What are you up to? What's this—'take the boy'? Where will you be?"

"Tomorrow will tell, won't it? Behind you, in one sense or the other."

He did not like that in the least, either. "Take the boy and do what?"

"Find Tamas. I'll find you, if I can. I think my sister forgave me. We'll find out tomorrow."

"What do you mean—find out? Isn't she dead?"

"Oh, she's dead. Dead without a stroke struck or a goblin suffering for it, and that's not her style, not Ysabel." Karoly took the twig from his mouth and spat a piece at the floor. "Raising a ghost—you never know what you'll get; that's the trouble."

"Is she around here?" The room seemed too full of shadows. "Is she listening to us?" It was deeper into magic and wizards' business than he ever wanted to delve, but Karoly said, so quietly the snap of embers seemed to echo in the hall:

"I don't get that feeling. That's why I don't know how much of her I can get back. Sometimes it's just a piece or two. That's the danger."

"What's the danger?"

"Of only the anger coming back."

An ember popped. Nikolai jumped, and the shoulder sent a warning ache. Karoly looked about him with an absent stare, and spat another bit of twig.

"Was that her?"

"That's the other problem with ghosts. Ysabel, Ytresse ... I wouldn't put it past any of them."

"Who? Put what past them?"

"The witches. Doing anything. I went to live over-mountain. My sister refused to deal with me after that. But she spent everything to call me home. She deserved her revenge. No one should die like that."

"And you brought the boys into this? You led us down that damned road and you knew all along what was going on here?"

"Keep your voice down. No, I didn't know what was going on here, I dreamed it, and there's a difference."

"What difference? You saw that marker!"

"And what could we do, then? Get back across the pass, with no supplies? Wait for the goblins to invade Maggiar? We were as close to their source as we might ever get—as close to the only place anyone can stop them, and close to the one who might have done it, with my help. But I wasn't in time."

"In time for your sister? What could you have done?"

"That's to be seen. That's still to be seen. —Let me tell you a story, master huntsman, if you care to hear it. Someone but me should know the truth."

He frowned and waited. Anything that made sense of the business, he was willing to hear—but he had limited faith the old man would make any.

"Some hundreds of years ago," Karoly said, "many hundreds of years ago, in fact, before there even was a Maggiar, there was a queen in over-mountain, and a tower at Hasel. The queen in Hasei had a daughter named Ylena. And nothing was good enough for Ylena. In her household, she had golden tables, and silver plates. Even her bed was silver and her washbasin was gold set with jewels ..."

"This sounds like one of those tales," Nikolai muttered.

"Of course, but that's Ylena the tales talk about. They don't know it's Ylena, but I assure you it is. Nothing but the best. And being a princess, as well as a witch—"

"Were all of them witches?" It seemed to him that essential things were being left out. A bard, Karoly was not. "Or was it just Ylena?"

"Oh, mostly they were. The queens of over-mountain all knew the arts to one degree or another. Anyhow, the queen discovered one day what a truly vain and ungrateful princess Ylena was, and she worried and worried about this."

"Too late," Nikolai interjected. "She should have taken a switch to the brat."

"Far too late for that. Ylena would ruin the land when she became queen, and queen Mirela, knowing that ... looked for some magical solution: a failing in lazy witches. So she went to the goblins."

"Just like that? Walked up to the front door and knocked?"

"Oh, being a witch, Mirela rattled a few dark doors at night, some few that wiser witches wouldn't touch. Remember, she wasn't a particularly wise witch. She'd brought up Ylena. But she was a desperate witch, and good-hearted. And the goblin queen, in exchange for a promise of access to the world of men for one night a year, gave queen Mirela a potion that would assure her youth and beauty. The usual bargain. So queen Mirela came back young and beautiful and healthy enough to reign forty years more at least. Ylena was furious."

"Naturally Ylena worked a sped against her."

"No, not immediately. It was a very powerful magic that surrounded her mother, and if you go against something that strong without knowing exactly the terms of it, you can do yourself harm. So Ylena waited a whole year until that night the goblins could come into the land, and approached their queen to ask her how to get the throne. So what was a little treachery against one's mother? And what was murder? Because Mirela had asked for youth and beauty, not a charmed life. So Ylena promised the goblin queen a whole year of access to human lands, when she should rule, in return for that advice. And that let the goblins into human lands again."

"Again?"

"Oh, they'd begun here. That's how queen Mirela first found the key to calling them. They'd left their signs on old stones, they left their spells—in magic, one wanders through them like old landmarks. Of course the goblins had their own reasons for leaving such clues in the world when they were banished—but that's another story. At any rate, Mirela perished under most suspicious circumstances, Ylena became queen, and the goblins arrived in the world with banners and circumstance. They were on best behavior. They did no mischief. They were courtly, they were nattering to the queen, and they oh'ed and ah'ed over the new princess—"

"Ylena got a husband."

"At least a daughter. She was named Ytresse. She was very beautiful even as a baby. But Ylena had never planned to have an heir, and she hadn't succeeded in preventing her birth, if you take my meaning. Nothing worked. She suspected goblin treachery, and she fell out with the goblin queen until the day the year was up and the goblins were preparing to leave. They professed their regret to give up so much grace and comfort, and the goblin queen remarked to Ylena that she wished they might make a further bargain."

"The fool."

"Ylena? Of course. Ylena sensed magic in that baby. Powerful magic. She sensed goblin work. And the baby, Ytresse, had survived some very determined efforts. So Ylena wanted a spell stronger than the baby's determination to live. And the goblin queen said there was a lake—a particularly beautiful lake they had come to revere—"

"Goblins revere something?"

"There are goblins and goblins. Certain ones, yes, apparently do. This lake had a perfect reflection. It's quite shallow, very still, and it was a place of power in this world that the goblins wanted. So the goblin queen swore that Ylena might live so long as they had possession of that small lake. It was just tricky enough that Ylena believed in it. So she agreed on the spot."

"Clever woman."

"Ah, but when you deal with devils, beware the loopholes."

"The youth and beauty part?"

"Exactly. But—the goblins were of course willing to give Ylena spells to stave off age—by their magic, of course. So Ylena was trapped in her own bargain. But—but—" Karoly spat another bit of twig." Ylena wanted to deal no more with the goblins, and began to sustain herself by ... well, say her subjects grew fewer and fewer. She knew of course she'd been betrayed. Then a certain goblin came to her and offered her a secret—a secret, he said, in return for which he asked three wishes."

"You're joking."

"Three is a potent number. And he used his first two, but the third—not yet, for all I know. But for whatever reason, he told her how the goblin queen's power lay in a mirror, a working of magical smoothness and exactitude, and that if Ylena wanted power to equal the goblin queen's spells, that was what she had to defeat. So Ylena had a mirror made of silvered glass as smooth and perfect as she could obtain, and put into its making every spell she knew. —None of which, of course, went unreported in the territory around the lake.

So on a snowy midwinter's eve, when everyone should be asleep, and, as it just happened, the night before Ylena was quite ready to take her on, the goblin queen sent out her army and turned her spells against Ylena's mirror. When all was done there was little left of Ylena but a wraith, nothing left of Basel but the shell, and nothing of Ylena's mirror but silver powder—so they say."

"And the goblin queen's?"

"Cracked right in two, with a small fragment fallen, that was the price she paid for defeating Ylena. But the same goblin, so he claimed, the very one who had dealt with Ylena, stole the piece and took it straightway—you guessed it—to Ylena's successor, Ytresse, who had grown up into a wicked, wicked woman. But Ytresse no more trusted the goblin queen than her mother had. She made sure of her own heir-nothing of the goblin queen's doing, a witch named Ylysse. And Ylysse, after a long, long lifetime, passed the power to Ysabel—"

"Your sister."

"My sister."

"But it's a goblin trap, that fragment. It was from the beginning. —Isn't it?" *

"Consider its history. Is the goblin thief Jying or not? And why that knowledge he gave to Ylena in the first place, and why the three wishes, and the unfortunate issue to Ylena? It certainly is to ask. ..."

"Then—" Certain prying questions occurred to him, that did not seem entirely unwise, also considering the history.

"Then—?" Karoly asked.

"Where do you come into the story?"

"I? Nowhere. Or only at the last. Ysabel and I weren't descended from Ytresse. Not even from her apprentices. Urzula was."

His heart gave a thump. "The lady gran?"

"Exactly."

Nikolai let go his breath and drew in another one, thinking. My god. What else isn't what we trusted?

"You and your sister? —Where did you come into this?"

"Urzula's apprentices."

Apprentices, for the god's sake. "And what brought the lady to Maggiar? And don't tell me 'adoration for Ladislaw.' I was at the funeral."

Karoly laughed grimly. "Not overmuch of adoration. But a fair bargain on both sides. Ladislaw got his heir. And dare I say—if one hopes to undo a spell, one has to reach outside its arena of influence, one has to do the unexpected, work where one won't be spied upon—conditions which don't pertain to this side of the mountain."

"But she never warned anyone, not m'lord Stani, not—"

"I knew."

"Damned lot of good it did anyone. You knew, you knew when you saw the trouble start, let alone that business on the trail."

"It might have been trolls."

"Might have been trolls! The troll's not guilty, master wizard, the troll was hiding in the basement at Krukczy Tower, in fear of his life, don't tell me you hadn't clearer messages out of your dreams than that, once every wild creature in the over-mountain began pouring into Maggiar. ..."

"There could be other causes. I hoped for other causes. That's the nature of magic, master huntsman. When will it rain, do the birds tell you that without fail? Better yet, do they tell you where? Or are there ever false signs? The goblins have been in this world for hundreds of years now—and will be, so long as the agreement with Ylena stands."

"It doesn't."

"Oh, but to this day, Ylena has never given up her power-power to frighten, power to kill. She's still in mis world."

"You mean she's not dead."

"That describes it. Not dead. Not alive either. So the goblins hold then- land—and the mirror is mended, with its one piece missing. As for mistress Ursula—what she did, and how much of this is the queen's doing, the Lady knows, but I don't—nor can, I've realized that, long since. Let me tell you another secret. Urzula's real name was Ysabel."

"Your sister?" More and more crazed, it was.

"Both were named Ysabel. Our mother was a servant in this tower, a very minor witch, a distant cousin. Ylysse gave Ysabel to our mother to bring up and gave out that we were her children. Which put us in danger, certainly. But Urzula—"

"Your sister?"

Karoly shook his head. "Use the names they lived by. It's less confusing. And listen. Urzula wanted me with her because I wasn't gifted enough to leave here in danger—that and other reasons. ..."

"Were there other reasons?"

"Were we lovers?" Another spit of twig, and a dark, silent laughter. "Yes. Ysabel—my sister Ysabel—and I had a falling out on that point. We were twins. Ysabel expected loyalty, since she was getting the short end of things, and standing in the most danger. Ysabel wanted the teaching more than she wanted life and breath and I wanted—Urzula, that was the sad truth. I wasn't so gifted nor so dedicated as Ysabel. Magic for me didn't take fire, the way it did for her. I never trusted it. Still don't. Ysabel drank it, breathed it— and she never could have the magic she really wanted, would never be the witch she claimed to be. And Urzula—Urzula ... the way she felt about it—you know, I never understood whether she was, inside, like Ysabel, in love with magic, or more like me. Urzula held everything inside and you never knew. But with her birthright, the god only knows what she could do if she used it as freely as Ysabel—if she let it use her, like Ysabel. I always thought—leaving Ysabel on watch here was like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse. Fond of designs, she was. Fond of workings and intrigues."

He found himself uncomfortable, in wizardry confidences. Embers popped, again, and Karoly's brow wrinkled with an upward glance.

"Are you there?" Karoly asked the shadowed air and the firelight, and Nikolai held his breath waiting for an answer, but Karoly gave another humorless laugh and looked down at his hands. "I chide the boys for moongazing. But boys are silly longer than girls, aren't they—and that I wasn't her ally, that was something Ysabel never could understand. That Urzula wanted me with her was something she thought she did understand—god, Ysabel was furious. And Urzula was on her way to get a husband and a successor the goblins wouldn't know about. That was—a painful realization."

A successor. Nikolai found his heart thumping so loudly of a sudden he could not believe Karoly did not hear. He asked, quietly, carefully, the gossip of every servant in the house: "Whose is Stani?"

"Urzula's, of course."

Damn the old man, up to the edge of truth and no further. But Karoly added, then:

"That's enough, if you want the truth. As witches reckon lineage it's enough. Ysabel and I lived this lie all our lives. And Urzula—" A private and lengthy silence. "She was really a reprehensible woman, Urzula was . . . short-tempered; cruel, at times . . . most times. Dreadful things amused her. But she worked for the right. —And defend her own people—god, she would do that." Karoly drew a long breath. "You know what disturbs me most?"

I couldn't possibly imagine, Nikolai thought distressedly, and simply answered, "No."

"That so much of the business with Ylysse began with Ylena."

"What do you mean—began with Ylena?"

"In sorcery—and far-working is necessarily sorcery—one wants to affect events at a great distance and over time, and one can't predict whether the outcome is good or bad for one or another person, only numbers of people. Urzula could dismiss consequences like that: Urzula didn't see one person, or a son, or a mother. Urzula saw—I can't tell you what Urzula saw, or, for that matter, what Ysabel saw. I only loved certain people. And I couldn't change what Urzula worked, I couldn't even change myself, or Ysabel. ..." Karoly cleared his throat. It had gotten very still in the room, and uncomfortably close. "Anyway, I chose the small magic, I'm a wizard, not a sorcerer, not even a good wizard until I've something I want with a clear conscience. I follow along after a sorcerer like Urzula, you understand, just picking up and patching what I can. Work against sorcery? That takes sorcery. That was Ysabel's domain." He took the twig from his mouth and shredded it in threads with his nail, as if the need to do that utterly occupied his attention.

"You mean you can't change anything? You can't do things differently than they've done?"

A moment's silence. "That's sorcery, too. Change the things they've done, means you change the far things. One thing touches everything. It's only the broken bits, the used bits, the bits passed over . . . that I can patch. The pieces in use—I can't help."

"Like Tamas? Is that what you're saying?"

"Like any of us. —Ysabel was as dangerous and as much in danger as anyone. It was a long and lonely time here, weak as she was, pretending so much more strength. Thank the god for Pavel."

"Pavel."

"The chap in the yard." A motion of Karoly's eyes. Up. Meaning the second pole and the second skull, Nikolai realized with a motion of his stomach. "He came from a long time ago. From Hasel. Half-mad, but he was devoted to Ysabel. Supposedly he kept the grounds—now and again. Mostly he kept Ysabel. —But beware the apprentice. Beware anyone who learned from Ysabel. The girl will have no conscience, Tamas, she won't know right from wrong . . . not if she learned at my sister's knee. Only the faraway things matter. Only the outcome, to anyone Ysabel would have taught..."

The old man was staring off at nothing, spinning the chewed twig in his fingers, talking to Tamas as if he were there, and the hair rose on Nikolai's nape. It took more than ordinary craziness to spook him, or ghastly sights to scare him—he had seen so many on his trek south, through the wars of wizards and petty tsars.

"Urzula saw the boys born," Karoly said, for no reason that Nikolai could understand, but the god only knew who he was talking to now. "She was satisfied then. She'd lived a long time. And she said they weren't her responsibility any longer. And I wasn't. So she died."

"Suicide?"

"No. Sorcery's like that."

"Better to wish your enemies dead. Damn. —And why didn't your sister know the goblins were coming? Why didn't she blast them with lightning or turn them to pigs or something? If she could call you from over-mountain, she wasn't helpless."

His caution had deserted him: he had asked too bluntly, perhaps, and he thought he might have angered the old man. But it was not a challenge. He honestly wanted to know why reasonable things had not happened, in a war of sorcerers.

Karoly frowned and finally said, very slowly, as if he were explaining to a child: "Because, master huntsman, do you forget? We aren't the only side in this war. The other side casts spells, too."

"So she couldn't just—send earlier?"

"So she couldn't think of it—at least not well enough to do a number of things all at once. It's often the little things that slip your notice—and sorcery doesn't leave tracks on objects that cause you problems, the way magic does. Mostly it's a gate unlatched, a moment of forgetfulness. Forgetfulness and looking past a thing are both deadly mistakes. The object on the shelf for thirty years, that you never think of being there, the thing you do every day, so you never remember whether you've done it or not, on one specific day. That sort of thing."

"Like this mirror that's so damned important? What does this mirror do? Why didn't the gran take it with her to Maggiar? Why did she leave it with your sister, where they could get at it?"

Karoly blinked and stared off across the room—looked back at him then as if he had only then accounted of his presence. "What did you say?"

"I said—why did the lady gran leave the mirror with your sister, if this tower wasn't safe from sorcery?"

Karoly blinked, shook his head, bit his lips a moment, frowning as if he were listening to something. Then he rose up, a shadow against the fire.

"Old man?"

"Find Tamas, do you heat? Find Tamas. Nothing's more urgent than that."

"And do what with him?" All his senses seemed foggy of a sudden, and the wound on the edge of hurting. "Shall we say, Excuse us, your goblin majesty, but we're not really interested in your war, and may we please go home? —I've been in bad situations, master wizard, I've been on battlefields and I've seen a city burn, but I didn't have a boy and a pony and a damned dog for an escort. And what do we do with the minor if we find it?"

Karoly pressed his fingers against his eyes as if he were fighting headache. "It's hard to think about. Ask it again, master huntsman."

"Why . . . ?" He must be falling asleep. He could not recall himself what must have caught Karoly's attention, god, he'd said it three times—did the man want it again? "What do I do? Where do I take me boys? If we get the mirror, what do we do with it? What can it do?" He remembered another piece of his question. "Why didn't the lady gran bring it with her?"

"Again."

"The damned mirror, master Karoly. What about it? Why didn't she take it to Maggiar? What's going on?"

Karoly looked . . . frightened, of a sudden, his eyes darting about the room. He's gone mad, Nikolai thought in distress. The old man's not sane . . .

Because he had never seen anyone do that in the middle of talking with someone, had never seen anyone take to watching something immaterial that flitted and darted and circled the room.

"Karoly?" Nikolai insisted.

Karoly stood up, and turned, a shadow between him and the fire as Karoly stared down at him. "Go to sleep," Karoly said, and suddenly Nikolai found his eyes so tired and the crackling of the fire so intense and so absorbing that he could not keep his wits collected. "Dammit, stop it," he protested—but his thoughts and his anger ran off in various directions, into memories of the road, the mountains, the woods and the pony. . . .

"The boy's in trouble," he dreamed that Karoly said. And Karoly said something more, concerning a place called Hasel, or where Hasel used to stand, but he could not hold onto the thought, not even enough to tell the old man what he thought of him. . . .

And Karoly for so many reasons deserved cursing.